


The Best Revenge is Living Well

by sharklion



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:54:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2546570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharklion/pseuds/sharklion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Arclight family and moving forward, moving on: Tron finds life returning to normal to be a long time coming, but maybe it's not just his sons that are dwelling on the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Revenge is Living Well

"It’s a new blend today, IV-niisama, Father. Please tell me what you think."

"Thank you, Michael."

"Haah? Oh, right. Thanks, III."

—

It was the small exchanges most of all that made Tron notice that all was not as it should be in his household.

After everything had been said and done, he went back to using Michael, Thomas, and Chris. But it was hard to ignore that III and IV had not. They’d respond if called, but there would always be a moment before they did, in hesitation or if because it had been long enough it took a second for them to remember who he meant, he wasn’t sure. But either way, there was no refuting that in their own conversations they referred to each other still by numbers without much thought.

Chris, of all his sons, had the least difficulties adjusting. He used both sets easily, the numbers with his brothers, and the names when he spoke with their father. It was strangely considerate, for Chris. Possibly it was because he was older and more used to their names, while his younger sons hadn’t been called by anything but their numbers for a while, was Tron’s thought, and he let it be.

—

He left alone Michael’s growing collection of ancient relics, and the hopefully ornamental swords on the walls of his room. He let the handheld gaming systems that Chris kept in his lab pass without comment, even though he knew Chris has never had any interest in any game aside from Duel Monsters. And Thomas’s increasing time spent with his doll collection would have been fine by itself, but other things made it worrying.

There had been the night Thomas had stayed up late cussing loudly as he tried to force his gimmick puppet deck to function with its ace numbers cards absent. At 1 AM, Tron was fairly confident Thomas’s efforts had ended in failure because the next hour the cussing had stopped and instead the brittle noises of something breaking came through the walls. The morning after, Thomas had a doll in his lap at breakfast, meticulously repairing fractured resin.

He had wondered if it was some sort of challenge to him, but Chris and Michael had ignored it without scolding, as if Thomas throwing fits, damaging his own belongings, and then spending the next day repairing them was business as usual.

He realized it was quite possible that it was, and stirred an extra sugar cube into his tea.

—

The matter of school had been brought up to Michael just once. He’d been confused for a moment, before smiling firmly and rebuffing, “My elder brothers were home schooled, weren’t they? And it will take IV-niisama some time to find a new assistant.” And that had been the end of that conversation.

—

He’d started the day with no particular intention to spend the day in Chris’s lab playing video games, but that was the end result.

Mid-morning, with the Asian Championships coming up soon and Thomas to defend his title, his two youngest sons had set up in the hall so they could duel without worrying about breaking anything. Unfortunately, this had rendered most of the museum residence off-limits to anyone who wanted to pass by without the possibility of being a bystander casualty, or who didn’t want to waste energy teleporting around the house all day.

So when the duel had started, Tron had decided there wasn’t any particular reason to leave Chris’s lab. But neither was there any particular reason to stay. The hand-held had been a convenient distraction to pass the time, and before he was really aware of it he had spent half the day cross-legged on the floor playing Monster Hunter.

It was a throwback to his childish behavior at the height of his madness, and he had looked over at Chris, worried. But rather than being upset as Tron had expected, he was smiling slightly to himself as he worked, a certain stiffness he usually worked with gone. It was strange, and he had gone back to his game, not sure what to make of it.

Except that it was probably okay to play with his headphones off.

Maybe they had been trying too hard.

—-

"Wha— What the hell do you think you’re doing?" IV’s voice rang out defensive, snapping as Tron produced his son’s deck from his hands in answer to the question.

"Don’t tell me the Asian champion doesn’t recognize his deck! I just wanted to take a look," he answered, before IV had a chance to ask.

"Well, look faster," IV muttered, as Tron laughed.

"Thomas, that’s no way to speak to—!" V cut in, before Tron interrupted.

"It’s fine; it’s fine. IV’s just nervous, after all, with his title on the line and his deck in shambles."

"Why you—!" IV snatched for his deck, trying to grab it from his father’s hands as Tron teleported backwards, shuffling the cards of the deck.

"Don’t be so impatient, IV. I’m giving you a gift," Tron clarified, showing a hand of new cards as he swapped them into the extra deck. "Dueling is your strong point, so I know you won’t let me down." He ran back to IV with the deck in both hands, holding it out. "Here you go."

IV’s eyes were wide and it took a moment for him to reach out and take the deck back. He shuffled through the new cards— better than the placeholder monsters he’d been making due with in the absence of his numbers, before he recovered. He smirked and announced loudly, “Who said this is for you? This year’s title is mine, no matter what you say or do!”

"Of course. I never said anything else. Do your best, IV." Tron gave a little wave, dismissing him, as he turned back to Chris.

"Even half that is more than enough," IV said, projecting arrogance with every word, "You’ll see when I thrash the opposition." But even with his protests and bravado, IV’s grin was genuinely satisfied as he strode off to fetch III, to test the altered deck.

"… and what was that about?" Chris asked. Tron hummed a noncommittal and smiled up at his son.

"IV’s an energetic child, isn’t he?" was all he said in response, and V left his question at that. There was no use questioning it, when he could tell too. Thomas had walked from that room with his back straight with pride, pleased with the purpose and challenge.

Tron wondered if someday he’d be able to accept praise straight-forwardly, but not for long. Well, this was fine too, wasn’t it?

—

"III," Tron said, and deposited a flyer on top of the open book III was reading.

"What is it, father?" III asked, looking up first before he noticed the paper covering his spot on the page. "The grand reopening of a bakery?"

"That’s right. The big cake for the WDC opening night was from there. We both missed it. So, let’s partake this time."

III glanced back up, a little amused. It had been a while since his father had asked for sweets. “Too much sugar isn’t good for your body, Father.”

"No need to worry. It can’t be any worse for me than this." Tron smiled and pinched above the edges of his mouth, where flesh gave away to shifting Barian chaos force. "Besides! Cake is my favorite!" His eyes searched his youngest son’s face for a reaction.

His expression was open in a gentle smile, and he looked back over the paper. “Tomorrow afternoon? I don’t think I’ll be busy. Let’s all go together, then?”

"Hm? If you want, III."

"Then I’ll go tell IV-niisama that I’m clearing his schedule."

Tron watched as his youngest son walked out of the room, smiling with the tea tray clutched to his chest. Regrets were such useless things, weren’t they? There really wasn’t any going back to the way things were before.

His family was fine with moving forward.


End file.
